Composer
In early 2017 I was experiencing some of the worst burnout I’ve ever had. Stress from all sides of my life was my only companion. I could only focus on what I needed to do an hour at a time, a minute at a time, a moment at a time. I was struggling with just …
Composed for the Central Michigan University New Music Ensemble, both movements are typical of my current compositional output. Harmonies are based on the repetition of a simple interval pattern and long lyrical melodies weave their way through these chaconnes. The rhythms and colors are rather plain, unadorned, and far from ornate. The directness and simplicity …
This quartet started its life as a fanfare and then became the first movement of a multi- movement work (the rest of the movements were pretty bad and they have been destroyed). I’ve always liked the material in this quartet; its forward momentum, its octatonic melodies, its mechanical nature. I’ve tried reviving this movement several …
When I was asked to write a short piece (between 1 and 100 seconds) for two saxophones and pre-recorded audio, I had no choice but to turn to the 1980s for help. I played around with various iconic tenor sax licks found in my favorite pop bands of the period that used saxes (Huey Lewis and …
This composition is a single movement that continually spins out from the opening spiky punctuations. The entire quartet has an organic sense of growth as it takes different motives from the beginning and winds through various incarnations of that material. This material is reinterpreted, recombined, twisted, stretched, and generally toyed with until everything coalesces again …
Very often, it seems, my music takes on a life of its own. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I started this composition but it didn’t take long for the piece to decide what it wanted to be. The sources of the tape part are not important. The inspiration for the …